A Farewell message from Rev. James Baker

To the Synod of NSW & ACT,

I have been privileged to serve as a Minister of the Synod of NSW & ACT for nearly ten years, and specifically as the Young Adult Ministry Facilitator for the last two and a half. I was ordained in the wake of the marriage plebiscite and plunged shortly after into a global pandemic that shattered our "church as usual" approach to things.  

If these experiences taught me anything it was that there was nothing that those who led my formation phase of Ministry could have thrown in to prepare me (us) for that.  

I learned that God doesn't live in the perfect, or sanitised pages of our lectionaries, or the safety of our committee meetings. These are vital and form the pattern and tapestries of a life ready for God's disruption. 

But I have found God in the ordinary and deeply life changing moments of ministry with those people who show up, who choose love, in defiance to a world that's too busy, too loud, and too scared.  

Thank you for providing me with hope. Not the easy won, short and optimistic hope; but that gritty, defiant hope. I have seen it in places and people who keep fishing even when the catch has been off, the people who show up to the same structures, but refuse to allow the Joy of Jesus be extinguished by systemic and institutional fatigue. And I have seen it in those who remember that we love, because God first loved us and there is always point to the creator and invites us to recreate.  

You listened when I pushed back. You invited me to extend the table. We have spoken about putting our distractions aside and listening to each other, including our children. Treating each other's stories with the same liturgical weight as the narratives that greet us on Sunday mornings. We talked about how breaking bread in local cafes, around kitchen tables isn't 'kingdom-lite", it is exactly the breaking in of the reign of God, the remembering of the body, and the invitation for transformation. 

You allowed me into your hospitals, pulpits, your lives, your grief and your joy. You allowed me to see that community is a practice, not a program. 

As I prepare to move to the UK, I am forever changed by the way that you have grown and stretched my heart, my understanding and witness of the creator, and the never-ending limit of grace will always be different and vast because of you.  

My parting prayer for this Synod, and the Uniting Church is that you don't stop stretching.  

One of my last acts in this space will be to stand with two people and marry them. They have committed to love and cherish each other, but also to the continued integration of each other's lives as family. 

Integration is more about being made whole, through the practice of awareness, listening and invitation. My challenge to you is that you continue to integrate rather than just include. Don't just make room at the table; change the shape of the table. Hold the stories of the margins just as sacred as those which gathered at the edges of the Nile, the Jordan and Golgotha. Don't try and fix the radical voices which make you uncomfortable, listen to them.  

Thank you for revealing to me what God might look like. It turns out, God looks a lot like a community who refuses to give up on grace, even when it might cost them everything.   

Grace, peace and mercy are yours from God who is triune, Creator, Christ and Spirit, forever.   

Amen.  

Rev. James Baker.